The 2009 ICMlC PA calls for maintaining """"""""development of novel imaging agents and technologies ... in a highly multidisciplinary environment """"""""... with """"""""....""""""""involvement of clinician scientists in all aspects of ICMIC-supported research."""""""" The 2010-2015 UCLA ICMlC goals are consistent with these NCI-ICMIC objectives. The PA Research Projects call for """"""""multi-disciplinary interactions among investigators focused on the ultimate goal of discovering, developing, and translating molecular imaging technologies, imaging sciences, chemistry, radiopharmaceutical chemistry, cell and molecular biology, pathology, pharmacology, computational sciences, and biomedical engineering"""""""". Our proposed projects each focus on a specific disease (Ribas, melanoma;Radu, lymphoma;Wu, soft tissue sarcoma;Herschman, colon cancer). They combine cell biology, specific mouse models for pre-clinical translation, and ongoing or proposed clinical trials of new delivery systems, new imaging probes or multi-modality imaging combinations to stratify patients, predict response to therapy and/or monitor response to alternative therapies. They involve collaborations among basic researchers using animal models, pathologists, radio-chemists, instrumentation engineers, statisticians, clinical oncologists and nuclear medicine experts. The PA proposes that Developmental projects """"""""stimulate interdisciplinary collaborations, while addressing promising emerging research opportunities"""""""". Our proposed projects are relatively high risk proposals that consider new approaches to imaging therapy (Kasahara), switching glucose metabolism in tumors (Chrisofk), monitoring alternative metabolic pathways possibly critical for tumor development (Bensinger) and a new way, not dependent on substrate-enzyme or ligand-receptor interactions, to identify potential imaging probes (Huang). Two 2010 Research projects grew directly from former Developmental projects. We continue and expand the service of our ICMlC Specialized Resources, but add no new Specialized Resources. We continue our Career Development program, funding highly qualified scholars in whom investment to work on molecular imaging problems will, we feel, provide a career-changing experience. The overriding goals of our Research Components, Developmental Funds, Career Development training, Specialized Resources and ICMlC meetings and seminars are (i) to foster incorporation of non-invasive molecular imaging to the best cancer research at UCLA, and (ii) to provide resources to encourage translation of molecular imaging principles and practice to cancer diagnosis, management and therapy.
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